New York -- For those who are beginning to identify just a bit with the poor souls in Mudville, for those who’ve gazed upon these back-to-back failures by the Syracuse University basketball team and are feeling a clammy hand on the backs of their necks, we give you Scoop Jardine.

Good ol’ Scoop Jardine, the smiley young man who is equal parts point guard and human balm, and is rather comfortable mixing facts with faith.

"We’ve lost two straight times and we don’t like the feeling of losing," he said earlier this afternoon. "But we’ve got to move forward. This ain’t the time to dwell on it because if we lose again, we’re done. And we know it.

"We’ve been consistent all year. I think we’ve been the most consistent team in the country. We’ve already won 28 games; we’ve just got to go out and get six more. We went on a 13-game winning streak, so I think we can get six wins. Hopefully, the ’Cuse Nation is still with us."

Though there are some who’ve no doubt concluded that this campaign has sailed over the falls -- and for evidence of this, one needs only to wade through the hysterical (and anonymous) comments that choked certain corners of this website last weekend -- the bulk of the faithful is certainly hanging on.

But with SU having come up short in Louisville on Saturday . . . and with the Orange having been eliminated from the Big East Conference Tournament by Georgetown Thursday . . . and with Arinze Onuaku and his strained right leg due in the MRI tube on Friday morning, there may be some twitching.

The regular season? Done. The league jamboree down here in the big city? Done. The Orange’s starting center? Perhaps done. And with Selection Sunday dead ahead, with 28-4 having become 0-0 at the sound of today’s final horn, with single-elimination now the way of the basketball road, Scoop Jardine’s words have become a kind of canon.

"If we keep positive thoughts, no matter what happens, we should be OK," said Jardine after SU had lost to the Hoyas 91-84 before a full Madison Square Garden house of 19,375. "But we’ve got to find what got us to those 28 wins, and we’ve got to find it fast."

The most pressing matter, of course, is Onuaku’s health. The 6-foot-9 center went down like a condemned building after colliding with Georgetown’s Greg Monroe with 5:07 to play against the Hoyas, spent too many painful minutes writhing on one of the Garden baselines as the professional types looked in the area of his right knee, and later hobbled in silence from the building on crutches.

Thus, the Orange sighs on this evening and Central New York sags. Indeed, if Onuaku is finished and if SU is forced to take just six proven players -- Wesley Johnson, Andy Rautins, Rick Jackson, Brandon Triche, Kris Joseph and Jardine -- into the NCAA Tournament, this Syracuse season would suddenly have a sooner-than-later expiration date affixed to it.

Fragility in Orangeland? It has, just like that, taken the form of a single 22-year-old leg.

"I don’t really want to answer that question," said Jardine when asked if he and his mates could mentally deal with the potential loss of Onuaku. "But, yeah. I think so. But I’m going forward knowing that Arinze is going to be all right."

Now, believe it or not, this afternoon’s black cloud of a defeat did come with the proverbial silver linings.

On the individual front, Johnson, though suffering from a cold, pronounced himself and his balky right hand whole. Finally. And his 24-point/7-rebound/3-steal/2-block performance would seem to have indicated as much.

Meanwhile, the larger view showed just how terrific this Orange outfit really is. Georgetown shot 58% from the floor (and 69% after the intermission), was treated to 17 Syracuse turnovers (many unforced) and watched as Onuaku was eventually helped to the locker room . . . and yet the 22nd-ranked club in the nation led by only 74-72 with four minutes to play and by just 85-81 with 51 seconds showing on the clock.

Nobody should be surprised, then, by what John Thompson III declared once the scrum had ended.

"That team is still one of the best, if not the best, team in the country in spite of today’s outcome," the Hoyas’ coach stated of the Syracuse bunch. "Do I expect them to be a dangerous team in the Tournament? Absolutely."

That had to have been presupposing, of course, that the 275-pound Onuaku -- who’d paired with Jackson, his tag-team partner, to average 20.8 points, 12.1 rebounds and 3.1 blocks per game during the regular campaign -- will be cantering by next weekend.

And it is assuming, too, that those periodic flashes of Orange exasperation from one player to the next, the ones that were on display on the famous Garden floor pretty much for the first time all season, amounted to nothing more than a product of the cranky moment.

"Oh, that was nothing," vowed Johnson. "That comes with playing. If Kris or Scoop or me or any of us don’t get the ball when we want it, our body language might show it. We were losing, and everybody wanted to make the play to get us back. Other than that, we were fine. Look around here. Look at the guys. We’re not happy that we lost, but we’re still smiling."

Well, not exactly. But it would be fair to report that, as they crossed their fingers (and toes) while mulling the status of their friend, Onuaku, the Orange athletes were hardly portraits of despair. Losing at Louisville on Freedom Hall’s closing day and then being edged by Georgetown in a glorified exhibition affair had bothered them, sure. But it had discouraged them not at all.

And none of them fretted whether SU might -- might -- tumble (horrors!) from a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament all the way down to a No. 2 as a result of that six-day slide.

"Honestly," said Jardine, the human balm, "it doesn’t matter to us."

Nah, there are more pertinent concerns.

"The most important part of the year is here," said Rautins before clearing the building. "We’ve put ourselves in a great position to do well in the NCAA Tournament. This is the time to come together as opposed to falling apart. We’re going to re-focus and re-generate and get ready to do some damage in the Tournament."

They were words that will likely play well in Mudville this evening. Truth is, though, good news on the Onuaku front would play even better on Friday.

(Bud Poliquin’s columns, his "To The Point" observations and his freshly-written on-line commentaries appear virtually every day on syracuse.com. Additionally, his work can be regularly found on the pages of The Post-Standard newspaper. E-mail: bpoliquin@syracuse.com.)